Hey all,

When I bought my JCW used, it had just about every upgrade in it...except the suspension which was 100% stock, not even the factory Sport Suspension.

Today I inquired about the price of the JCW Suspension my local dealer. He quoted me $2700 before sales tax!!! I know the Minis are tough to work on down there and so the labor adds up quick, but still...that just seems positively absurd.

I'm mostly looking for less roll going around corners. Would like it lowered a few mm too, but I know that's probably going to be expensive. Sway bar? Cheaper shocks/springs? What would you guys suggest as a starting point?

 

the general consensus is a rear sway bar. It's like $200 (depending on which one you get, but the most popular would be the Hotchkis sport bars, 19 or 22mm). With that alone, it'll change the feeling of your car, little to no body roll.

If you're looking to lower the car, TSW or NM springs are what's popular. Whether you stick them on new struts and shocks or not (Koni Yellow Sport, if you're going with lowering springs), they should work decently with your stock struts.

Both of these are simple DIY mods, and there are step by step picture instructions on doing this on this forum as well, so why pay a dealer or an indy shop to do it!!

 

A rear sway bar (RSB) will significantly reduce body roll, and overcome most of the understeering that you'll see.

Second would be a spring / strut combo that increases BOTH the rate and damper valving.
The OEM non-sport, and sport suspensions are not characterized as good components for handling - they're still based on comfort.

Skip the JCW hardware and buy into a high quality aftermarket system, like Koni, Bilstein, or H&R.

- Erik

 

Can you suggest a good spring/strut combo?

 

NM-Engineering springs with a Koni yellows or Bilstein sport struts are highly raved about.
Also, the H&R Sport Cup kit is excellent.
There's several different choices; read through the archives as there's valuable information on what owners have done.

- Erik

 

Depends on what you want to spend and how much you value ride quality. You could add Koni FSD's and get better handling and ride with your current springs. Or you could go all out and get Bilstein Sports with Swift Spec-R springs. Anything more than that last setup would require a high quality set of coil-overs. Whatever you decide to do, a rear anti-sway bar is a must, 19mm is more than enough for the street.

 

As for starters, do the free camber mod. Its just a little bit o negative camber, but you will feel a difference, and, if you like what camber does to the car, you may want to go with camber plates. Or coilover with camber plates.

 

Does depend on what you want to do with the car and what problem with handling do you want to improve. If you want to take it to the track, you should have an integrated plan for the suspension upgrade. Just remember that the suspension has to function together to give you superior handling. A wrong part or alignment can potentially degrade handling enough and make the car difficult to handle at the limits

If you use it for driving on the street, you have more latitude.